Somewhere I Belong
by aphdinme
Summary: A study of why a lone runner keeps running.
1. Chapter 1

Running. It is the earliest memory I have - my toddler's waddle quickening as I try to reach my father. I don't remember his face, but I remember the feeling of falling into his arms and knowing that this was _home_.

I was raised by my mother after my father left us. Raised is a strong word, I think - we more or less supported each other through the travails of daily life. It wouldn't have been half as hard on our own if we hadn't once known what it was like to have more. More possessions, more love, more peace. As with all things, however, life went on, and we moved on with it. My toddler's waddle had developed into a confident stride and a fast yet steady pace, in more ways than one. I had, however, forgotten what home was. It was hard to remember especially after my mother died.

I don't feel sorry for myself. If I am anything after all those experiences, it is a realist. I am aware that my personal losses don't mean anything in the big picture and that all the people who enter your life will also leave it at some point, one way or the other. I don't think of myself as cynical or jaded; I merely believe people are capable of good and bad things, and that I should savour every moment that I am alive and experiencing things. I just make sure I don't end up getting so attached to something that I fall, hard, when it ends. My father's arms are no longer there to catch me.

Life has been a bit of strange one for my generation. We are not so old that we are too mired in the old ways to survive today, but we are also not so young that tinned peaches and repurposed clothes are all we know. Oh, I glossed over that bit, didn't I. I was on my early morning jog when the world ended.

It started like any other day. 5 AM, crawl from bed to kitchen for tea and a banana and manage to feel half alive and awake before pushing myself through the door for my daily jog. Even in freezing winter, I was running. I was no longer running towards or away from anything - my feet rhythmically hitting the road and the little puffs of condensation from my breathing helped keep me sane through a long working day. I was on my usual route and saw the usual one neighbour who also liked running at this godforsaken hour, gave him my usual nod of recognition and went on at my usual pace. The only thing out of the ordinary was a strange woman standing in the middle of the street like she was lost, or perhaps waiting for something.

"Hello?"

I know I'm an antisocial git and overall not-very-genial person but something wasn't right. Perhaps she was just wandering in half-sleep, or had a mental condition and needed to be gotten somewhere. I slowed to a slow walk, like approaching a jittery animal, and tried again.

"Hello? Are you alright?"

Maybe it was the early hour and the utter stillness of the air but I saw her fingers twitch. I was approaching her from behind so I couldn't be sure if she had heard me, but I could hear her rattling breaths from where I was. From where I shouldn't have been able to. I berated every step I took, telling myself this was a bad idea and I should just run, but some strange instinct took over and moved me closer to-

 _CRUNCH!_

I had stepped on some stones. The roads around here had needed a new coat of tar three years back. I grimaced at the thought of the crumbled granules stuck in the grooves of my running shoes and thought there was a metaphor in there somewhere. I looked up to find she was looking at me now.

Everything seemed perfectly normal - her face was stiff as a mask and her eyes curiously blank. Her fingers twitched again. Then she took a deep, rattling breath through her parted lips and suddenly my heart was racing.

I started running back the way I came almost before I fully voiced that thought in my brain. Every time I looked back, there she was, doing a jerky walk/run combination that seemed almost like an invisible puppet master were pulling at some invisible strings. As I turned the corner, I ran into something and prepared to scream when a hand covered my mouth and an arm went around my back. It was Usual Neighbour.

He motioned to me to be quiet as he slowly pushed me behind him. He was holding a thick branch and tensed up in fight-or-flight mode. He ignored my whispered, half-formed _what?_ and readied the makeshift weapon which- _oh gods it has blood on it_. And some bits I'm pretty sure I don't want to identify. My brain is on overdrive and shut down, simultaneously.

The next few minutes went by in a blur: the strange woman tumbled her way towards us and Usual Neighbour clubbed her with the branch and bashed her brains in. It was a bit too early in the day for something so horrifying, I thought, nauseated. Neighbour looked at me and must have figured I was liable to go into shock, so he grabbed my chin and forced me to look into his eyes.

Usual Neighbour's name turns out to be Mike. Four months hence, I was at Mullins Military Base, listening to Mike tell me he needed my help with a sensitive mission.

* * *

A/N: I do not own any of the elements of Zombies, Run! - this is a work of fanfiction purely for non-commercial purposes.

That aside, hello everybody. This is my first attempt at writing Any fanfiction, so all constructive criticism is welcome. If you think it's awful, blame Tumblr for inspiring me to finally write one. I suspect it will wrap up in 3 to 4 chapters, no more. More cinnamon rolls in the next chapters, we swears.


	2. Chapter 2: No Turning Back

Running. Somehow I am always running.

I took a moment to find the humour in the situation as I ran from the crash landing site. I had been through a difficult childhood, the start of an undead apocalypse (I refuse to call them zombies) and just survived a helicopter crash, but it only took a jammed seatbelt for my life to flash by my eyes. Flailing helplessly immobile as I was consumed by a ball of fire or a hungry predator - this was not the way I'd expected to die, and I momentarily felt the grip of panic seize my heart not unlike that day I first came face to face with something I would become vastly familiar with over the months to come.

I had grabbed the pilot's radio headset before I had finished thinking my actions through, and started running. This was something I was familiar with and could hopefully ground me (I giggled at that) while I mentally sorted through what to do next. The radio interrupted my thoughts and off I was to earn a place at Abel Township. Half an hour in, I was sprinting like more than my own life depended on it.

As I collapsed into a heap safely inside Abel's gates, I realised how true that was. There were a lot of people (and children!) staring at me as other people with weapons maintained a 10-foot perimeter around me, and a woman with a gun stepped forward warily. I tried to get to my feet.

"Stay where you are and don't move until I tell you to do so." Steel in that voice, hard to disobey. I lay in my little pile.

"Good. Now hand over what you've got there." I bristled at the presumption in that voice and locked eyes with her, attempting to convey exactly where she could shove it.

"Janine, please. There is a better way to handle this." A softer voice amplified as the owner walked closer to me. The person she had called 'Janine' stiffened. I recognised the voice as the doctor who had made me get the file ( _CDC, was it?_ ). She walked up to Janine and put her hand on the barrel of the gun, pushing it down. A whispered but visibly heated exchange ensued while I finally got my breath back. The doctor cautiously approached me.

"Easy there. I'm Dr. Myers. I was one of the people that directed you here. Before we take you in, I'm afraid I'll need to see that file."

I looked her over slowly, my gaze lingering on her outstretched hand. I suddenly felt the absurd need to run towards it and be hugged, and I shook my head. Dr. Myers seemed to misinterpret this as her expression darkened, but it cleared as I wordlessly handed the file over to her. She took a few moments to look through it and turned to Janine, nodding her approval. Janine lowered her weapon by oh, an inch, and took a few steps towards me.

She hesitated. "Standard protocol for unknowns is to disarm and be examined for bites before we can proceed further." I cocked my head and considered her. Was that an apologetic note? I couldn't tell. There wasn't much else I could do at this point, though, so I exhaled and got to a kneeling position with my hands on my head.

Janine walked closer and carefully maintained her aim while the doctor put her files aside, put some gloves on and slowly ventured to touch me. She ran her hands in an intimately knowing way over my body and I would have blushed at this public display except it was something I had been through before at Mullins. As she was finishing up, someone came running towards the armed guard.

"Is that them? Is that the new Runner 5?"

My head shot up at the familiar voice and I winced as my neck protested and the sun caught my eye. A man in reasonably formal shirt and trousers was attempting to talk to Janine through the perimeter. She caught me looking and frowned. I cast my eyes about for something innocuous to stare at and noticed the newcomer's worn out sneakers, incongruously completing the outfit. I stifled a snort.

"Mr. Yao, this is neither the time nor the place for such a display. When Dr. Myers is through with her examination, we will go to a more private place for a debriefing and then perhaps you can assuage your curiosity." Dismissive but a mildly fond tone, I noted; clearly the radio operator's open enthusiasm was indulged by more than just the doctor.

When she was finished and pronounced me clear of bites, Dr. Myers helped me to my feet and led me through to what evidently passed for the field hospital here. The armed guard very helpfully brought in the things I had picked up and left without comment for the most part. The radio operator hovered.

"I think it's time you told us your name." Janine did not mince words. She looked steely but I sensed a certain… excitement she seemed to be controlling. Dr. Myers looked like she was reading through the CDC file but clearly was keeping an ear on the proceedings.

I looked at the radio operator and smiled benignly.

"Runner 5."

* * *

A/N: I do not own any of the elements of Zombies, Run! - this is a work of fanfiction purely for non-commercial purposes.


	3. Chapter 3: Is it Me You're Looking For?

Running yet again. It's funny how these things turn out.

After that rather spectacular introduction to the Abel Township populace, I was a pretty well known face. People from all over the site kept finding reasons to talk to me in their futile attempts to find out what was happening "out there". They learnt soon enough that I was the quiet sort and for the most part stopped bothering me. At least Sara would spar back; I didn't even bother responding.

Runner Eight. There was a mystery wrapped in an enigma and bound very, very tightly. She reminded me of Mike in many ways, especially when she made it seem like she knew more than she let on. She also was the President of the "We Don't Trust Five" club (Janine was the honorary secretary). That made it very difficult to train with her, which I found disappointing because she really helped the other runners push their limits in training and seemed to practically throw herself at every new mission slot. She was also handy to have watching your back in a sticky situation, as I learned from stories around the lockers. I suppose I couldn't blame her for her opinion of me as I didn't trust easily either.

That didn't seem to be a problem for most of the other runners, though - they seemed happy enough having me around on missions with them. Seven had already managed to add me to the roster after a few training runs to assess my stamina and give me the lay of the land. I had been out on a few solo runs too. I suppose they weren't exactly solo in the strictest sense because Abel had ended up with the chattiest radio operator in the world, Sam Yao.

He was an odd one, the operator. It sounded like he and the previous Runner Five had been close, yet he had witnessed her undead body destroyed to save my sorry life and still watched out for me on my runs. I found myself growing used to his distracted chatter in my ear as I balanced all my supplies or sprinted away from a horde. We hadn't really had a conversation outside of a mission context but I imagined that he was easy to talk to and wouldn't treat me like Alice was sitting on my left shoulder. I suspect it was just gratitude on my part for being the one denizen at Abel that had openly stated, "If I were attacked by a rocket launcher, see if I'm not too busy protecting my own arse to bother going out again and again to run errands for you sorry lot."

Endearing chap.

As I sat down to wash my sports bra, I realised it was the same one I had been wearing when I'd met Mike for the first time. Should I have trusted him and come here or would I end this with egg on my face, or worse? Ironically, it was the nature of our meeting and subsequent attempt to survive together before landing up at Mullins that had led him to trusting me above everyone else he knew, to come to Abel. Who knew smashing a few infected in to save someone was a good way to make a friend?

* * *

I was in the infirmary, getting some shuteye after the mission from hell. Janine had sat in on this one. It had gone tits up faster than you could sneeze, and I'd ended up staying out far later than anyone had intended. I'd also had no comms link back to Abel and had needed to run away from a few persistent infected into the woods, which is a good idea only while you can see your own shadow. In the dark, however, the trees are terrifying shades that whisper amongst themselves and the air plays tricks on you. I also wasn't anywhere I recognised, once I got out of the woods. I was resigning myself to finding somewhere to bunker down for the night when my headset crackled back to life. Never had I felt such a staggeringly powerful relief before - I wasn't alone anymore. Which was the strangest thought to have at that point, if you think about it.

I had somehow made it back. A few minutes later, or if I had decided to rest a bit before carrying on, I wouldn't be safe behind Abel's walls now thinking dark thoughts about my left calf muscle. It was late the next evening and I was already restless, though I was feeling aches in odd places. I knew I had been lucky, not skilled, and the thought terrified me almost as much as the shadows moving while the sun set. I heard a screech and a muttered ow and my heart raced and muscles tensed before I realised it was just Dr. Myers having distractedly walked into a cot again.

"Dr. Myers, when do you suppose I could leave?"

She turned around and smiled. ""Five, how many times have I told you, it's Maxine. Maybe I should hold you here until you've at least learnt that."

Oh. "Maxine, my favourite Abel doctor Maxine, will you be my knight in shining armour and kindly pronounce me fit to leave?"

She looked at her clipboard. "I'm the only Abel doctor, and not until your HP has recovered or maybe if you find a mage with a healing potion in the next- hmmm, what? Sorry, I got a bit muddled up there. Janine's being funny with the quest rules for tomorrow's game and I'm trying to find a workaround."

"Trying to find a way to cheat, you mean, you of the Festering Buboes spells." Jack and Eugene walked in with bags loaded with what looked like bandages, ointments and- oooh, sports bras. I have a thing for a good sports bra. (Must make friends with Jack if he had this sort of access.) While I was distracted by the bags, the friendly bickering had continued.

"If you can convince Janine to lift the silly restrictions she's placing on these power ups, maybe I can be persuaded to conveniently forget my more potent spells when you're around." Maxine look smug and a trifle hopeful.

"Nah, you know she's been keen on doing this ever since Sam repaired that dungeon and locked her in it for two rounds."

"Yes, well..." Maxine levelled a speculative glance at me. "Five, have you ever played Demons and Darkness?"

...

Two hours later, I knew more about Faerie Magicks (Jody) and Giggle Demons (Sam) than I'd ever expected to, and the quickest way to appease the gods (throw a game to Janine). I was feeling much lighter than I had in a long time, and perhaps it was a bit of that and a lot of gratitude that got me comfortable with this conversation.

"Have you always loved board games, Maxine? I didn't know anyone who played them so never got into them myself."

"No, I…" She paused and swallowed. "I used to date someone who was obsessed with these things so obviously I got roped in every time our friends played them."

I hadn't considered her or anyone at Abel as regular people with lives and loves, I realised. (Jack and Eugene were practically one entity so they didn't count.) The way the world was today, it was highly likely that anyone you got close to would be trying to get a juicy bite out of you sooner or later. If you were really lucky, you'd see it quickly enough and take their head off in time. It seemed best to just not bother, but it also seemed to be doing these kind people an injustice to treat them as merely a means to an end. I seemed to be making a friend in Maxine and resolved to treat her like one.

"That sounds so domestic. But, I sense, not a happy ending."

"We were… something special, but separated by the outbreak. What else? It's a pretty common story and far less tragic than most. If you don't mind, I'd rather not go into it."

"Of course. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be seeing all this with your family or partner next to you. Whether it would make it any better or just far scarier, I mean."

"However all this ends, I think everything is better when it's with someone you care for. I realise we don't know each other very well, Five, but circumstances have brought us all together and you're a part of us here, now. I hope you know you needn't be running away any more."

All the subtlety of a hammer, Maxine.

"Figuratively speaking, of course, and literally for the next week at least."

"Aw, man."


	4. Chapter 4

Running was never this emotional an experience before.

"We've got the envelope. We'll try to find Veronica, Veronica McShell, and give it to her." Maxine sounded almost desperate.

"Veronica… If you find her, tell her her daddy loves her very much." He coughed out what would be his last words.

Sam would have also been there. All of them on the other end of the radio, while I was dodging some zoms. Would I be joining Chris soon?

I think about that day a lot. The day Chris McShell died. He had extensively studied the effects of ZN1 on the population for years. He knew everything there was to know about how zombies would behave in different circumstances. He had meticulously recorded all his observations so that we could maybe stand a chance in this desolate reality. What good did it do him, though? Does the greatness of your legacy spare you the pain of knowing you are about to die and being unable to stop it? To stop what would happen to your flesh immediately after?

Would that be happening to me? Every time I went out running, it was always something dodgy or at the very least murky around the fringes, and I inevitably landed myself into a zombie soup. The odds were very heavily stacked against my making it through this apocalypse with my brains uncurdled. How would people remember me?

Our lives before the zombies didn't matter so much any more. No one seemed to even want to refer to those days. It's like getting yourself through running a marathon - it's so long that it seems like all you've done is exist in that moment of running. There is no before, and the after seems too vague and far away to imagine. There is only the present, with one foot in front of the other. That lamppost, that tree - you invent small hurdles that you pride yourself in crossing, marking off time travelled in the direction of the finish line. So too was the zombie apocalypse full of markers like that - each run completed still human, each day where I climbed into my bed bite-free, each moment was a lifetime I have lived and survived.

Surviving didn't seem enough anymore, though. Before the world changed, I had been living my little life in my little house in my little corner of the world, marking time off as I hurtled towards my inevitable death, satisfied if I made it through the days without too much hassle. Somehow now that dynamic had changed - knowing how precarious our lives were, I wanted to mean something, to be someone. I wanted to make a difference to the way we lived and to our futures. Chris's death brought that home to me very clearly - even those we perceived to be the best of us are fragile and evanescent. Chris was an unknown statistics teacher before. He may never receive an award or official recognition for his study of zombie behaviour. But his observations will save countless lives and may possibly, one day, turn the tide of this zombie war in our favour.

That's an ideal worth striving towards, right? Even if my life before this point has been meaningless, if I through my running am able to save enough people and keep them alive through this apocalypse, my life might have meant something at the end. My death might mean something.

A lot has happened since I came to Abel. I have made and lost friends, nearly died on countless occasions and experienced things I wouldn't have believed in before these strange times. The way things are going, it's going to be a long, long time before we have anything resembling stability and security in any aspect of life. Have things gotten better, or have they gotten worse? It will likely be the job of future generations to decide that, and not ours. In the meanwhile, all I can do is hope, and run. At least now, I'm always running home.


End file.
